Chapter Text
—
Leon watches you nervously as you work around the house. The symptoms have retreated - for now. He’s afraid he’s scared you and you’ll pull away from him. He can’t have that.
”Maybe…” Leon wets his lips. “Maybe you should take me back.”
”Leon,” you groan, Slamming the dishwasher closed. “I know what you’re thinking.”
Do you? Do you actually? Do you know he’s thinking about grabbing you and bending you over the counter to sink his teeth in your neck and finally relieve the horrible craving you’re causing him. He feels like if he doesn’t get his hands on you right now, the wanting might kill him. But he says nothing - he only looks away in shame.
”Whatever this is doing to you, however it’s effecting you… I’m not afraid of you. The whole black eyes and veins thing kinda threw me off, I’m not gonna lie, but you’re not scaring me. You’re not scary, Leon. You aren’t that person to me.”
He remains silent and staring at the wall. You’re pretty spot-on.
You sigh, marching over to him and grabbing his arms. “If you’re afraid, and you’ll feel better at the hospital, I’ll take you. But if you want to go back because you think I don’t want to take care of you, you’re wrong and I’m mad that you would even think that. Look at me and tell me you understand.”
He nods sheepishly.
“No. Say it.”
He finally locks eyes with you. “I want to stay here.” His voice is quiet and nervous - something you don’t often hear from him.
”Good.” You squeeze his biceps and give him a smile. “Now go shower. Cool water, please.”
—
Leon feels slightly better after his shower, despite the itch beneath his skin that started up the moment you left his sight. He rushes through it and throws his clean clothes on as quickly as possible - he needs to get back to you.
You’re at the stove making some soup, and the gesture makes his stomach ache. You don’t know how to treat his symptoms, so you help him in the only way you know how. Affection and chicken noodle soup.
The moment he presses his body up against your back, nose at your pulse point and hands splaying possessively over your belly, the itching in his blood stills. He relaxes.
You rub your cheek against his stubble with a giggle. He laughs, too - genuine and deep in his chest. To touch you like this, so intimate and loving, and have you respond in the way that you do… it’s part of the reason he’s never even considered trying to get over you. You’re dangling his biggest dream in front of him and allowing a taste every now and then, and that’s fine with him. He loves you so much that even a crumb of your love will hold him over.
“Needa shave,” he grumbles.
”What if I like it?” You pull your wooden spoon from the soup and position it in front of his mouth.
”Then it stays.” He drinks from the spoon. “More salt.”
You lick the spoon for yourself, humming in approval. The salt is just outside of your reach, so Leon grabs it for you and presses the bottle in your hands - he shudders when your fingers touch. You look up at him for a moment with a hint of heat in your eyes, but he blinks and it’s gone.
”I need to change your bandages,” you murmur. “Can you grab my backpack by the front door?”
”Mhm,” he says. He buries his face deeper in your neck. You smell so fucking good. Surely, he could have a taste? Just one? You’d let him, wouldn’t you? His cock is stirring, and he prays you won’t notice.
“Leon,” you say.
”Fine,” he huffs. He peels himself away from you with an annoyed sigh as he makes off for the front door, swiping your backpack up and bringing it over to the sofa. Leon pulls his shirt off while you wash your hands, and sits on the couch to wait. Cannoli jumps up next to him, licking at his palm.
You fish around in your pack for the necessary supplies, sitting down between Leon’s spread legs before he can think to close them. Well. Shit. Then you’re getting up to your knees and straddling his thigh, and he’s fucked. Leon’s adam’s apple bobs and he looks away as you pull the old bandages from his skin. Leon’s dick jumps to life.
And then, when he’s thinking there’s absolutely no way this can get worse, you rest a hand on his pec and tell him that he’s “Sitting like such a good boy.”
Leon bites his lip to keep the moan from escaping. He can feel the stirring in his blood, the indication that he’s about to lose himself to Las Plagas. “Redfield,” he mumbles.
“Mm?” You say, your attention fully on cleaning the wound above his heart. He’s hot. He’s so damn hot.
Leon licks his lips. His vision is starting to blur. “Stop.”
”I know, I’m sorry. This one looks like it hurts. Almost done. Promise.” You shift your weight further into his lap, brushing against his length, and Leon blacks out.
In an instant, he’s flipped you, pinning you to the couch with one hand on your throat and the other cushioning your head. He pants wildly as you blink up at him. You’re confused, but you’re not afraid. Never afraid. Your hands cup his cheeks gently. “Leon?”
He can feel your heartbeat race under his thumb, your throat bobbing as you swallow. Despite his strength, his grip on you is feather-light. You’re so fragile underneath him; so breakable.
”Leon?” You try again. “Look at me.”
Leon feels like he’s separated from himself as he watches the exchange between you and his body, as he wrestles for control.
You simply look up at him and stroke his cheek lovingly, like he’s not got you pinned down and defenseless. Like he couldn’t kill you right here and now. But you know he won’t - you’re so certain that you’re just putty in his arms as he manhandles you.
And then Leon is snapping back to his body, scrambling backwards and off the couch. Away from you.
“Leon?!” You cry, reaching out for him desperately. He attempts to crawl away from you, but you’re throwing yourself in his arms before he can get away.
“You’re okay, You’re safe.” You coo at him the same way you do when he wakes screaming from a nightmare, and he melts in your arms like he always does. You’re right - he is okay, he is safe. He’s right where he belongs.
You must feel the fever leave his body, because you pull away to look in his eyes. “Maybe I should be scared,” you admit. You stroke his hair softly. “But even when you look at me with black in your eyes and your blood, all I can see is the pretty face that holds me when I cry and cuddles me and touches me with hands so gentle I can’t even imagine them ever hurting me.”
Leon blinks slowly up at you, falling impossibly deeper in love with you.
You pull him up onto the couch and hold Leon close to your chest, arms compressing him against yourself to calm his mind and body in the way only you can.
—
The rest of the day is spent on the couch watching trashy tv and avoiding David’s calls - Leon smiles down at the phone whenever you let it go to voicemail. You both eat soup and popcorn for dinner, and around eleven pm, you’re slapping Leon on the thigh and standing up from the couch.
“Off to bed, you.” You lean down and smack a kiss to Leon’s head, whistling for Cannoli to follow you up the stairs. “Wake me if you need anything!”
Leon blinks, having been half-asleep already for an hour or so. He rises slowly, picking up the blanket you’d been using all day to take with him. He’s not looking forward to being across the hall from you for a good eight hours, but he trudges up the stairs nonetheless, closing the guest bedroom door behind him. Pictures on cork-boards scatter the walls - people who frequent your spare room. There’s your siblings, Jill, work and college friends he’s not familiar with, David, and him. In fact, you’ve got his picture framed on the bedside table. It’s a photo of the both of you on your 23rd birthday, where Leon had thrown you over his shoulder walking home because your feet hurt. Your heels hang from his free hand as his other arm holds you steady, and you’re peaking out upside-down under his armpit. You both look so happy, so carefree. That makes him smile.
Then he thinks about how he’d been deployed the next morning and come back with a bullet in his neck, remembers bleeding out as you’d tried to plug the wound with your fingers. Watching you cry in fear had been so much worse than the wound. He brushes a finger over the familiar scar, and he’s no longer smiling.
Leon climbs into the safe haven of your guest bed, a place he’d always slept better than his own. He’d probably sleep better on your hardwood floor than in his apartment. His head hits the pillow. He sleeps.
—
When Leon wakes, the first thing he notices is your scent hitting him like a fucking semi truck. He groans and rolls over to bury his face in his pillow in an attempt to mask the smell - but it only gets worse. It’s like you’ve rolled around in his bed and slept on his pillow. The smell is different from what he’s been surrounded with at every turn in your apartment, and the cursed parasite in his body provides him with an explanation; a single, horrible, beautiful word. Ovulation.
It is at this moment that Leon feels movement, and he realizes that this is not actually his bed. It’s yours.
He just woke up in your bed. At some point, while asleep, he had gotten up from his bed and come to yours - and that’s not even the worst part.
Because he’s spooning you. Actually spooning you, holding you against his chest with a vice-like grip. You’re curled up against his chest in the fetal position with your face in the crook of Leon’s neck. Your arms are wrapped around his bare stomach and tucked in the waistband of his boxers. Your legs are tangled with his own and he’s pulled your thigh between his legs for friction.
In all of Leon’s history of being fucked - this time, he is absolutely, undoubtedly, immeasurably, jaw-droppingly, royally, fucked.
He begins to pull away at a snail’s pace so not to wake you, and you pull him back in with a grumble. He tries again. This time, you moan his name, and Leon quietly unleashes a string of every curse word he has ever learned. You’re starting to stir, and Leon is running out of time. In a last-ditch effort, Leon rips himself away from you and scrambles to the ground.
”Leon?” You say, peeking over the edge of the bed at him on the floor. You blink sleepily - you’re still half-asleep.
”I… I’m sorry.” Leon’s chest heaves with the combination of anxiety, fear, and arousal.
You rub at your eyes. “You comin’?”
You comin? As if it’s totally normal to wake up and find your half-naked best friend in your bed and tangled up in your body, soaking through his drawers because he’s so goddamn horny from just touching you.
Leon opens his mouth to tell you, no, he is not coming. He does not. He closes his mouth, and he climbs back into your bed. You’re instantly resuming your position in his arms, settling back against him as if his body was made to house yours. It was, Leon knows. But you don’t know that. Not yet.
You will.
—
You’re called into work the next morning.
”You absolutely sure you’re going to be okay?”
”Yes,” Leon says. No, he thinks. If you leave me, I will die. The parasite will eat me from the inside out if I don’t take you to bed right now.
”Okay,” you smile. “I’ll be back. Won’t be more than three hours, tops.”
”Great,” Leon says.
You obviously sense that’s nervous. You sigh. “I can ask someone to take my shift. I can move some things around-“
”I’ll be fine. It’s only three hours. Just… don’t stay too long. Please.”
You throw yourself in Leon’s arms and crush him in a back-breaking hug - he pulls you tight against him and drops a kiss to your head. You finally back away from him hesitantly, eyes tracking his face until the door between you shuts completely. Leon goes over to the window and watches you pull away, and when your car is gone from view… he makes his move.
He creeps into your room with quiet, careful steps; not like you’d see him, anyway. But he likes to be cautious nonetheless. He can’t say he’s never done anything like this before, but he’s certainly never been so damn bold about it, nor has he ever done it in your house. He knows it’s inappropriate, knows it’s gross, even; but he doesn’t care. If you knew, you wouldn’t be mad at him, right? You’d understand, he’s sure of it. You have no idea how much he hurts, how much he aches. Nothing could scratch his itch like you could, but this will do for now.
So Leon feels no shame when he fishes around in your hamper for some dirty clothes, and he doesn’t feel bad when he very gently locks Cannoli out. She doesn’t need to see this.
He settles down in his bed and spreads the clothes he’s chosen on his pillow - a scrub top, and a pair of your panties. He knows you don’t wear these scratchy lace ones to work, and the thought occurs to Leon that maybe you wear them for him. He quickly shakes the idea away - he can’t think about it too hard. If you wanted him, surely you’d tell him, right? But you don’t, and he’s just the creep that’s masturbating to his best friend’s clothes. I’m sick, he tries to tell himself. It’s not my fault that I want you so badly. It’s just my instincts.
Leon buries his nose in your top and inhales deeply, identifying the scents filling his nose and savoring their taste on his tongue. Clean sweat, body wash, lotion, antiseptic soap, alcohol swabs, blood - but not yours.
Then he’s sticking his nose in your panties, and-
“Oh, fuck.” Leon moans as he presses your underwear closer to his nose and mouth, flicking his tongue out to get a taste. This is so much better. It’s all you. He’s done this before, sure, but his heightened senses make all the difference. He can’t believe he’s never experienced this before.
( There’s no comparison to the real thing. He has to get his mouth on you )
The taste and smell of your pussy overwhelming his senses has him feeling drunk on you. He desperately rolls his hips into the pillow he’d shoved in between his legs, but he’s hyper-aware of the fact that what he is fucking is not your pussy, and it infuriates him.
Would you want to take him on your back, or your stomach? Ride him, even? Would you let him fuck you raw, like his instincts are screaming at him to do? Would you let him breed you?
He cries out in rage as he slams his aching dick, so swollen and full of his seed that he feels like he’s going to burst. It fucking hurts.
He murmurs your name over and over as he mercilessly humps his pillow - but no matter how good your panties feel against his tongue, no matter how much your scent floods his senses, he can’t reach his peak. He only gets more desperate and painful. He can’t come unless he comes inside of you.
Leon throws his pillow against the wall with a strength that surprises him and cries out - so overwhelmed and swamped with emotions that he can’t stop the sobs from wracking his body. He has never felt so out of control and helpless, and it’s only getting worse. Is this actually going to kill him?
Leon climbs from bed, completely miserable, and trudges over to the bathroom for a cold shower. He stands under the freezing spray of water with his head down and his palms flat against the tile in front of him, trying to think of anything but you. His erection goes down slightly, just enough to ease the pain, but not enough to relieve the ache.
He’s feeling particularly exhausted and sad in the wake of your absence, so he dresses and curls up in your bed. It’s like the virus has gone dormant in your absence, draining him of energy and shutting his mind and body down. He can’t sleep, so he wraps himself in your blankets and stares at the tv playing a nature documentary. Cannoli lays next to him, licking at his face every so often like she’s checking in on him.
What feels like days later, he can hear your key in the lock from across the house; and he springs out of bed and makes it down the hallway, down the stairs, and across the first floor before you open the door.
Your face lights up when you see him. “How’s my favorite patient?”
”Three hours and seven minutes,” he tells you.
You sigh, dropping your bag and keys on the floor carelessly. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. But I’m here now. I’m all yours.” You press your body against his and stand on the tips of your toes to wrap your arms around his neck. He scoops you up and walks you to the kitchen as you giggle, sitting you down on the kitchen counter. Your legs remain locked around his waist.
“Missed you,” you murmur, brushing the fringe back from his forehead. He leans into the touch and hums in pleasure.
”Missed you more,” he whispers. “You have no idea.”
”I have some idea,” you tease, gently running your hands through his hair. He wants to moan. “You have no idea how much you mean to me.”
”You are the best thing in my life.” Leon scoffs, nuzzling into your palm. He presses soft kisses to your skin.
“You are the best thing in mine.” You drag your thumb over his cheek.
He opens his eyes and looks up at you through his long lashes. “Better than David?”
You sigh. “I don’t understand why you two hate each other so much.”
Leon grumbles, “He takes up too much of your attention.”
You boop his nose. “Your job takes up too much of your attention, yet I never complain.”
”Yeah, well. I’m not in love with my job.”
”Sometimes I think you might be.”
He flinches. “What?”
”You’re gone two weeks every month, and you go in to train recruits when you’re not deployed. You’re married to your job.”
”Do you wish I spent less time at work, and more time with you?”
”Yes,” you blurt.
”Okay,” Leon says. “I’ll make it happen.”
You frown. “I’m serious, Leon.”
”So am I. If you think I love my job more than you, I’ll do whatever it takes to convince you otherwise. I don’t ever want you to feel that way.”
You bite your lip. “Do you? Love me?”
He knows you mean it platonically, but he certainly doesn’t. ”Of course. You’re the most important person in my life - of course I love you.”
”More important than Ada?”
He raises an eyebrow. “What in the world would possess you to say that?”
”You love her, don’t you? Actually love her. Like, in love.”
He shrugs. “Used to.”
”Not anymore?”
”Not anymore.”
”Why not?”
”I moved on.”
”To who?”
Your phone rings, and both of you glance over at it on the counter. It’s David.
”Don’t answer that,” Leon says.
”Leon…” You reach for your phone but Leon is faster; he covers your hand with his and traps it on the counter.
“Don’t answer.” He’s staring you down like you owe him money - and you shrink under his gaze. Your hand goes limp underneath his as he intertwines your fingers and presses your joined hands up against the wall.
”Leon,” you groan, tilting your head back to bare your neck to him. He wraps his free hand around your throat and noses at your jaw, panting against your skin.
“Don’t answer.” He puts his open mouth on your neck and sucks.
When your phone rings again, neither of you hear it.
—